In the age of parallel computing, there has been a consistent growth of cores available on the central processing unit (CPU). However, the “free lunch” is now over and the CPU is facing the end of the easily obtained performance gains from Moore’s Law. Another widely used processing unit, the graphics processing unit (GPU), has also been under the influence of Moore’s Law. Therefore, as the graphical standards demanded by driving markets have consistently risen, the companies that produce the GPU have been able to consistently deliver a product that was capable of meeting these standards. In addition, the GPU has grown efficient, if not more efficient than the CPU, at handling floating point calculations. Due to this, the GPU is no longer restricted to the graphics related industries and is seeing use in applications outside of graphical processing. Therefore, and an analysis of the graphical processing unit will be conducted. The focus will be on the history of the graphical processing unit, the tools that assist with the utilization of the GPU, and the impact that it has made in the field of parallel and high performance computing.
Analogous to the technologies that the computing industry has grown accustomed to, the GPU did not emerge onto the market as the sophisticated piece of hardware that it is currently. In order to reach this point in time, there were many years of development and experimentation that led to the deployment of the GPUs available today. To begin, one of the first companies to develop a piece of dedicated graphics hardware was IBM. In 1984, they introduced the IBM Professional Graphics controller, which utilized an on-board Intel 8088 microprocessor to process some of the video related tasks. Although it wa...
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Companies that render high quality images for posters or produce high quality images for movies and web design may use multiprocessing enabled machines because they can render these images and support these programs with a dramatic decrease in latency issues. If the same programs or images were to be rendered on a standard home computer it could take years or the program could altogether crash as the PC doesn’t have the processing power to support the program.
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The brain functions as the epicenter of the nervous system, similar to the way in which the nervous system acts as the command center of the body. The brain is believed to be the most complex organ in the entire body; with the cerebral cortex being the largest system of the brain. The cerebral cortex contains billions of neurons and the neurons are regulated by synapses which are responsible for communication between other neurons. The communication process of neurons is facilitated by the axon or axon fibers which relay signals or action potentials to the parts of the brain and body, generating either a motor or sensory response and in most cases both. A primary role that the brain serves is translating sensory information into bodily
VMD or Visual Molecular Dynamics is a computer program that can be used to design, animate, and model molecules especially organic molecules so that they can be visualized in 3-dimensional graphics for analysis and better understanding of their molecular structure and components. For the most part VMD is used to view and analyze the molecular stimulations, but the program also contains rendering tools that can be used to modify the dimensional and sequential data of the molecules. The data can be applied in various ways. Biochemists can rearrange and form amino acids to observe mutagenesis or functions of the proteins, it can also be useful to predict and understand catalytic mechanisms stimulated by proteins.
In 1980 Apple FORTRAN introduced and proves to be a catalyst for high-level technical and educational applications. Apple III announced at the National Computer Conference.
The computer model that was developed by three intellectual chemists is not only about chemistry. Without help from quantum physics and advanced computer technology, the computer would not have been created. These studies allowed the chemists to simulate small and large molecules. With this research information, it is arguable that the computer has become more important in the research of chemistry.
GPUs can be classified, using Flynn’s taxonomy, under the single instruction, multiple data streams, or SIMD, classification of computer architectures. Generally, most common CPUs can be classified as single instruction, single data stream or SISD. Commonly SIMD is faster but less diverse, SISD is likely slower but more diverse. Thus it is often worthwhile to run certain tasks on a GPU rather than a CPU, rather graphics based or ...
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Computers are one of the most popular kinds of electronic devices in the world today. Whether kid or adult, male or female, everyone wants to learn how to operate the computer. People use computers for different purposes such as typing papers, creating websites, making presentations, browsing on the internet, playing games, etc. In fact, many people are still confused about choosing what kind of computer they want to buy. In the world today, there are two types of computers: notebook/laptop and desktop. They both are actually very different in several ways. In this paper, I will compare the size, connectivity, power, and price of notebook and desktop computers. I can make these comparisons because I have both a notebook and a desktop computer in my apartment.
In the past few decades, one field of engineering in particular has stood out in terms of development and commercialisation; and that is electronics and computation. In 1965, when Moore’s Law was first established (Gordon E. Moore, 1965: "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits"), it was stated that the number of transistors (an electronic component according to which the processing and memory capabilities of a microchip is measured) would double every 2 years. This prediction held true even when man ushered in the new millennium. We have gone from computers that could perform one calculation in one second to a super-computer (the one at Oak Ridge National Lab) that can perform 1 quadrillion (1015) mathematical calculations per second. Thus, it is only obvious that this field would also have s...
One specific use of computers in drug development is a program developed by Art Olson called AutoDock. This program is used to simulate the interactions of proteins in molecules as they meet. Because of the extreme power of today’s computers, the program creates extremely accurate results, even though there are thousands of factors that determine the final result. Using these simulations, scientists are able to more easily understand how two different molecules will interact, which helps greatly in the drug development process.
The Whirlwind computer had a video display that was controlled interactively by a light gun. The display attracted users much more than computer code. The Whirlwind computer became the basis for SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), a defense command-and-control system developed for the Air force. In the 1960s Ivan Sutherland’s MIT doctoral thesis introduced a Sketchpad interactive drawing system, which established the theoretical groundwork for computer graphics software (Machover 14). In the mid-1960s, computer graphics was booming in private industry. General Motors had released DAC-1 a computer-aided design system, and Itek developed the Digigraphics electronic drafting machine. By the late 1960s the first storage-tube display terminals appeared, shortly followed by direct-view storage tube display terminals (DVST) which cost thousands of dollars; however this was an improvement to the tens to hundreds of thousands spent initially for display systems. In the 1970s Turnkey systems emerged, beforehand users had to develop software to make their hardware work however turnkey systems provided a haven to users from software issues. Bit-mapped raster displays developed as memory...
My interest in Computers dates back to early days of my high school. The field of CS has always fascinated me. The reason for choosing CS stream was not a hasty decision. My interest started developing in the early stage of my life, when I studied about the invention of computers. The transformation from the large size to small palmtops enticed me to know about the factors responsible for making computers, also the electronic gadgets so small. I was quite impressed after seeing a small chip for the first time in my school days, especially after I learnt that it contained more than 1000 transistors, “integrated circuits”.